15 
FOSSIL PLANTS FROM THE CYPRESS HILLS 
OF ALBERTA AND SASKATCHEWAN 
By Edward W, Berry, Johns Hopkins University 
Illustrations 
Plates V and VI. Illustrations of fossils 
Page 
7&-79 
I recently examined a collection of fossil plants made by Professor 
M. Y. Williams in Cypress Hills district of Alberta and Saskatchewan, 
which contains several interesting things and which is, so far as I know, 
the first formal record of the occurrence of fossil plants in that region. 
Cypress hills constitute an upland in the plains country and are 
situated a few miles south of the Canadian Pacific railway and about 40 
miles north of the International Boundary, between 108| and 110| degrees 
west longitude. 
The general section is as follows: 
Oligoceue conglomerate 
Unconformity 
Raven scrag beds 
Whitemud 
Estevan sandstone 
Fox Kills 
It is no part of my purpose to attempt a summary of the geology. 
The district was surveyed by McConnelP who reported on it in 1886. 
The present collections of plants come from the Estevan and Ravenscrag. 
Mammals, reptilia, and fishes to the extent of some forty species are 
known from the Oligocene, having been noticed first by Cope in 1891 
and later by Lambe in the strata unconformably overlying the Ravenscrag, 
and originally considered by McConnell to be of Miocene age. More 
recently dinosaurs have been discovered in both the Estevan sandstone 
and Whitemud, which are, therefore, correlated with the Lance formation 
as developed in Montana. This leaves the Ravenscrag as the representa- 
tive of the Fort Union of Montana, although all three were originally 
referred to the Laramie in its original indefinite sense. 
The present collections, which are the property of the Geological 
Survey, Canada, are from ten localities, although some of these are repre- 
sented by material which is not determinable. None is sufficiently large 
or varied to afford data for the discrimination of the three horizons men- 
tioned, as may be seen from the accompanying table of distribution of 
the species identified, so that the conclusions here presented are of 
palaeobotanical rather than stratigraphic interest. 
Eight species are recorded from the Estevan and of these only two, 
represented by rather indefinite material, have been recognized in the 
Ravenscrag. This, at first sight, might be thought to indicate a floral 
difference, but all of the Estevan plants except the Marchantites and 
Trochodendroides sp., both of which are obscure, are found in the Lance 
iGcol. Surv., Canada, N.S., voL 1, pt. C (1886). 
93259-2) 
